"Thomas Jefferson asserted that if there was any leader of the Revolution, "Samuel Adams was the man." With high-minded ideals and bare-knuckle tactics, Adams led what could be called the greatest campaign of civil resistance in American history. Stacy Schiff returns Adams to his seat of glory, introducing us to the shrewd and eloquent man who supplied the moral backbone of the American Revolution. He employed every tool available to rally a town,...

This book is a behind-the-scenes portrait of the Irish power brokers who forged and fractured twentieth-century Boston. It tells the hidden story of Boston politics, the cold blooded ward bosses, the smoke-filled rooms, the larger-than-life pols who became national figures. It includes Honey Fitz, the crafty stage Irishman and grandfather to a president; the pugilistic Rascal King, Michael Curley; the hectored Kevin White who tried to hold the city...